We've not had a Martin O'Neill argument in ages...

[Rudy Can't Fail]

I guess some on here hated top six finishes, getting to Wembley, playing in Europe and being a club that actually mattered.

That must account for the MON vitriol.

That's a bit like your wife or husband maxing out the credit card, remortgaging the house and spending the kids' birthday money on foreign holidays.  Still, at least Magaluf was nice.

You forgot to mention she was a really crap shag.

[not3bad]

Hang on a minute, what happened to the clique? Is it a party line now?

Yes, were you not at the covert planning meeting on Thursday?

What? I was never in the clique in the first place, is that what you're telling me?

There are cliques within cliques...

http://youtu.be/s6jYoagXmZE

[passport1]

How about the improvements he brought about in the players he inherited.

Bouma lost weight and played very well.

Laursen became something of a cult hero and played regularly when most thought we would never get more than the odd game out of him.

Barry who had been adrift became an England regular and wasnt it a unique experience to see a Villa manager see off a so called bigger club when Liverpool came calling? Normally our default setting was to roll over and take the money.

I quite liked feeling we were behaving like a club with ambition.

[SoccerHQ]

'Thoroughly decent'? And, again, 'held in high regard' - by whom? By Robbie Savage and Steve Claridge?

He is remarkable in one way. There aren't many managers who are so good at one thing and so bad at another. MON is, or at least was, quite amazing at motivating players, creating a club mentality or even a siege mentality, and inspiring loyalty in players and individual performances of a level higher than they often should be. However, he was a good candidate, even while with us, for the title of League's Least Progressive Tactician, along with training methods, player diets, squad use etc. He would have been a brilliant manager in the 1970s, but he was an inadequate one in the 2000s.

In regards to our training and fitness I think O Neills injury records compared to each of our managers since speaks volumes. Also whilst his rotating policies should have been better. We kept a high tempo for 90 minutes far better under O Neill than the last couple of managers.

I think there's some fallacy that O Neill had this lazy bunch of booze guzzling, fag smoking wasters at his disposal who couldn't last the season. I don't care how fit you are if you don't rotate your squad a bit, or make substitutions, even the fittest squad would struggle by March-April as we annually did. But in my view, on the seasons on a whole under O Neill our squad looked in much better nick than it does now. Players didn't drop like flies. And they always gave 110%
Compare Gabby now to back then. Fitness, attitude but mostly work-rate. It's like a different player.

If I had a squad of players I wanted fit for Prem competition and to be looked after. I'd be asking O Neill to do it long before I'd ask Houllier, Lambert, or TSM1.

He really should've learnt from 08/09 in regards squad rotation.

I still think of the two seasons 09/10 was our best opportunity to finish top 4 (clearly it had to be with the money Man. City were spending) and yet in March 2010 we had results like Villa 2 Wolves 2, Villa 1 Sunderland 1 and Chelsea 7 Villa 1 which knackered our GD compared to Spurs anfd Man., City.

We didn't change the team enough. It wasn't impossible to win with below par 11s, christ early on in the season we won at Anfield with Shorey and Beye as our full backs.

That reminds me, Habib fecking Beye. What was the point of signing him when Luke Young was already at the club and in the end he just decided to play Cuellar at RB for the whole season, what a waste of a signing.

He did some good things for the club I'm not going to deny, 6th was about par for what we were spending but we did mess up some great opportunites.

I always look at that game with Man City toward the end of O Neill's final season. It just set the course and path for two sides to go in wildly different directions. We were ahead of them at the time. 1-0 up and fairly good value for it. They won the game 3-1, finished the season ahead of us, got Milner that summer and the rest is (painful) history.
To think within a year we went from competing with the likes of City, Spurs, Liverpool to push the established top 3 of that time, to squeeky bumming it in relegation scraps.

I think often not using very energetic players like Sidwell or Coker enough to freshen things up was to his detriment. They may not have been brilliant but to rest a Barry or Petrov etc, in that middle and try and inject some energy in the spring decline. Some players didn't get enough of a look in either. Routledge, who's proved useful at this level since with a bit of faith in him, and wee Shaun. It's not just that he bought a few duffers. He bought useful squad fillers and didn't use them and they ultimately became duffers.

But as we know, O Neill never learned from mistakes and never had a plan B. And what we've been left with in the last two appointments is two poor mans answer to O Neill.

We also won at Bolton just before the cup semi with Milner on the bench who was in incredible form at the time.

Back in 09/10 the four games against Man. City and Spurs (who both narrowly finished above us) ended in 3 draws and a defeat. Not too bad but I remember the manner of those games and use being on the back foot in both v Spurs and also Man. City at home, we took the lead in three of those games aswell.

Ultimately under MON as much as we had a decent record against most of the top teams, very rarely would we dominate or play the game in our terms, it was very much backs to the wall on many occasions. This was even after spending 100m + on revamping the squad.

[Gareth]

Nobody has said that the O'Neill years were bad. What HAS been said is that with the resources he had available he should have done better, and his legacy continues to cause problems.

Exactly my thoughts...with the addition that the way and timing of him leaving wiped out every drop of good faith that he built up.  The act of a gutless man.

[dave.woodhall]

Nobody has said that the O'Neill years were bad. What HAS been said is that with the resources he had available he should have done better, and his legacy continues to cause problems.

Exactly my thoughts...with the addition that the way and timing of him leaving wiped out every drop of good faith that he built up.  The act of a gutless man.

I think it was Tom Ross who said that everything he did was for the benefit of Team O'Neill. What I do know is that he left us without a single senior coach, four days before the season started.

[passport1]

Nobody has said that the O'Neill years were bad. What HAS been said is that with the resources he had available he should have done better, and his legacy continues to cause problems.

Exactly my thoughts...with the addition that the way and timing of him leaving wiped out every drop of good faith that he built up.  The act of a gutless man.

Or one that was constructively dismissed

[dave.woodhall]

Nobody has said that the O'Neill years were bad. What HAS been said is that with the resources he had available he should have done better, and his legacy continues to cause problems.

Exactly my thoughts...with the addition that the way and timing of him leaving wiped out every drop of good faith that he built up.  The act of a gutless man.

Or one that was constructively dismissed

Which he wasn't.

[Dave]

Nobody has said that the O'Neill years were bad. What HAS been said is that with the resources he had available he should have done better, and his legacy continues to cause problems.

Exactly my thoughts...with the addition that the way and timing of him leaving wiped out every drop of good faith that he built up.  The act of a gutless man.

Or one that was constructively dismissed

Yes, horrible Randy Lerner forcing him to resign five days before the start of the new season because he wasn't allowed to sign Aidan McGeady.

[Gareth]

Nobody has said that the O'Neill years were bad. What HAS been said is that with the resources he had available he should have done better, and his legacy continues to cause problems.

Exactly my thoughts...with the addition that the way and timing of him leaving wiped out every drop of good faith that he built up.  The act of a gutless man.

I think it was Tom Ross who said that everything he did was for the benefit of Team O'Neill. What I do know is that he left us without a single senior coach, four days before the season started.

Absolutely, it was the act of either a selfish man protecting his mystique or even worse a calculated act designed to cause the most damage possible.

[passport1]

There was a little more to it than that.

[dave.woodhall]

There was a little more to it than that.

I'd be very interested to know what, and how you know it.

[Toronto Villa]

There was a little more to it than that.

This better be good, because either you are privy to some earth shattering revelation or you know absolutely nothing at all and find yourself in dark corner. Good luck.

[Gareth]

Nobody has said that the O'Neill years were bad. What HAS been said is that with the resources he had available he should have done better, and his legacy continues to cause problems.

Exactly my thoughts...with the addition that the way and timing of him leaving wiped out every drop of good faith that he built up.  The act of a gutless man.

Or one that was constructively dismissed

I'd forgotten that he dragged it out for months to get his 30 pieces of silver

[ChicagoLion]

There was a little more to it than that.

This better be good, because either you are privy to some earth shattering revelation or you know absolutely nothing at all and find yourself in dark corner. Good luck.

Don't hold your breath mate.